NBA Announces Africa League to Start in 2020 Involving Obama

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Saturday announced the launch of the Basketball Africa League, a 12-team competition consisting of teams across the continent.

The league, which will begin play in 2020, will feature squads from Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia. Qualification tournaments will be held later this year to determine the inaugural participants.

Each country will be limited to two teams. The plan is to have it run in a format similar to soccer’s UEFA Champions League, per Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated.

“As we’ve been talking about this concept over the last several months, there’s been a tremendous reception from several of our NBA team owners,” Silver said. “Several of our partners have also expressed an interest to work with us in Africa.”